Thursday, February 15, 2007

KINDERGARTEN PICK UP

I stood outside my son's Kindergarten classroom waiting to pick him up from school and travel to McDonald's for a special mother son meal. I peek inside the classroom and watch as he interacts with his classmates and teacher. I am proud of the way he seems at home, talking to everyone, waiting patiently for others to put their classwork away, helping another put away building blocks that he did not use.

As I look around the classroom I am struck by the diversity in his classroom, compared to the kindergarten class I attended. He is learning side by side with a young black child, twins from Pakistan, two youngsters adopted from Korea, and a child newly immigrated from Italy. There are also two children who are Jewish. I do not remember such diversity in my class, but on second thought wonder if it was there, but I was not able to recognize it.

Looking at all the diversity in that classroom reminds me that my son is part of that diversity. He was born into a different culture, to a mother who spoke a different language and lived half a world away. When I visited the country of his birth, I was a stranger in a strange land and people on the street recognized me as American simply by my dress and behavior.

I am struck by the way others probably do not see my son as "other" and I pray a silent prayer of thanks that he does not know the pain of racism. I look carefully at his forehead, chin, and hair -- all of which betray his Russian heritage to anyone who cares to notice.

Finally, he runs to me clutching a big bag of Valentines and we look at each one before starting the car. As we read each one, he reacts the same way. "Megan, she really loves me." "Tyrone, he really loves me." "Omar, he really loves me too." In this moment race, color, religion, gender, and the like does not matter to him. What matters most is that they love him and he loves them.

We go off to lunch and he regales me with stories of his class and the way cat rhymes with hat and also bat and mat.

If only today could last forever.